


heart, be still

by Anemoi



Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-05
Updated: 2015-09-05
Packaged: 2018-04-19 03:17:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4730876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anemoi/pseuds/Anemoi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first thing you say when you see him is predetermined-<i>I’m sorry.</i> Circumstances dictate it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	heart, be still

**Author's Note:**

> [all](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3212267/David-Beckham-flies-Manchester-LA-dinner-grieving-Gary-Neville-just-weeks-shock-death-best-pal-s-father-Big-Nev.html) the background i have, tbh.  
>  i'm...sorry. i keep writing them though i can do no justice to them, for obvious reasons.

The first thing you say when you see him is predetermined- _I’m sorry_. Circumstances dictate it. He looks older than you’ve imagined, even though you had plenty of time to prepare yourself, even though you know, really, time and age and all that. When you look in the mirror it’s not like a boy grins out at you. The boy condensed out until the man is what’s left, crystallized. Harder. You think, looking at him, crumpled underneath his jacket- it’s a nice jacket- you think, _Oh Gaz._  

 He accepts your apology like he’ll accept many others in the days to come. Brusquely, taking it and laying it aside. You want him to know it’s not a mere formality, that the news hit you too, made you look through pictures you haven’t for ages just to find the one where Neville’s holding Brooklyn in his lap, Brooklyn still round cheeked and covered in baby fat. Brooklyn’s getting his first cover on Teen Vogue in a couple months, with Victoria’s pout and your own careless smoulder.

 Gary fits into you like always, but with time apart the edges between you get more pronounced. It makes you both awkward, leaning against each other, his hands on your upper arms too tight, and you clutch him too hard. You let go first, and duck your head down at the menu. There’s a candle between you on the table, flickering like a caricature of a romantic date. You’re reminded of the old days, all of a sudden, when you’d traipse over to Gary’s house with the slightest excuse, cook him food, lounge around, do anything so you didn’t have to be alone.

 You talk quietly during dinner. He’s as sharp as you always remembered. You keep holding out for a blurred edge, some hint of sorrow and pain, but he doesn’t betray it. He looks you in the eye, very knowing, and his voice drops a little.

So then you want to reach out and touch him. It’s simple. you want to tuck the label into his jacket, want to smooth back the collar of his shirt, want to run a hand up his neck, thumb at the lines on the corner of his eyes. How did you both get so old?

You don’t. There’s still eyes on you, after all this time. Lens pointed at you. You’ve learned, learned so much. You’re weary with learning. So you don’t. He gets coffee after dinner - _Really, Gary, Coffee?_ \- that earns you a glare and you laugh- you get the weird new dessert they have, some monstrosity topped with sliced strawberries and cream. He laughs at you digging in, always, not restrained but flat out, mouth so open it looks a little stupid and you love him for it. Not bothering to show his wit and his edges for you. You love him when he rolls his eyes and you hand him the spoon to try.

‘Good?’ You ask, teasing.

‘Too sweet.’ He lifts a shoulder and drops it, hands your spoon back. Your fingers touch, clumsy and brief, on the silvery handle. You stick it in your mouth, lick it clean.

His eyes are on you the entire time. He swallows hard and look away. You think back to before, the nostalgia hitting you so strongly it almost feels like a nosebleed. A sudden warmth in the space between your eyes, a faint stab of pain, gone before you’ve barely taken stock of it.

 He drinks his coffee quietly. Now it’s plain to see that he’s hurt, because you know him so well. You feel sorry, genuinely, sorry and helpless because there’s nothing for you to do. You’ve flown thousands of miles for him, but you can’t do anything. You want to reach out again, reach through the grief layered on him, tell him, _Gary I’m here. I’m home._

 But you can’t. You’ve got no right to be here, anyway. People don’t come back from the dead. The candlelight flickers on the table between you. You know now’s not the time to say it- but there never will be, you know this too- but you want to tell him. There’s a picture of the two of you that you printed out when you left for Spain, kept it by you, in your pockets, wallet, your kit bag, wherever. It’s folded so many times there are white lines through your faces and the oversized kits you’re wearing. In it Gary’s laughing, looking unbelievably ridiculous with that terrible haircut and the camera catches him with his mouth wide open. You don’t look so suave yourself, squinting up in to the sun, lips pursed. It was too hot. You remember it because it was so rare, sticky heat and grass stuck on your legs with sweat.

You kept it around a lot and then one day you lose it. It’s nowhere to be found, and you give up searching. Might have fallen out of your pocket, maybe.

He looks up, now, catches you watching. You drop your eyes to the espresso he’s holding to his lips.

He smiles, raises an eyebrow. “What? Want the rest?”

“Okay.” You say, and he pushes it over. You turn the cup around and put your mouth where his was, downs what’s left in one go. It’s bitter. You grab a paper tube of sugar from the side of the table, making the most aggravated face. You pop the entire bag in to your mouth, stares at him guiltily.

He laughs at you, cracking up, putting a hand over his mouth. Some of that grief leaves his shoulders when they shake with mirth, you can see it. Like dust motes in sunlight. You look at him with a mouthful of slowly dissolving sweetness. You love him- how does that line in that one poem go?- _between the shadow and the soul._

-

  Talking with Victoria was never hard.

  A conversation in Madrid: her eyes very bright when she stands there in front of you, a hand on her hip. _David, we need to talk about this._ But really it’s just her talking, voice precise, never berating. You sit there, hand clasped between your thighs, head hanging. Afterwards she waits and you nod. She knows, even if you don’t say anything. But you say the words out loud anyway, like a promise. _I’m sorry._ She believes you, and leans over to press a kiss to your forehead. You’ve seen her do the same to Brooklyn, sat on the edge of his bed, his chubby little hands curled over the top of his blanket, eyes solemn and wide as she kissed him goodnight.  

Victoria’s lips warm on your forehead. She leaves the faintest scent of powder and perfume, familiar enough you almost don’t pick it up. This is what you know of infidelity.

-

 Talking with Gary was never hard, but in different ways. After dinner you get in to the backseat of a cab with him, shoulders apart but knees pressed together in front of the air conditioning coming through the center console. You think about shifting, because the cold air is surely damaging your kneecaps, but then again. You are old. Your kneecaps can suffer. Gary’s cheerful enough, because you told him you’ve booked a room at Hotel Football, and that means seeing Old Trafford.

 “Are you going back?” You ask. He’s sat on the chair in front of the windows, blinds up, admiring the view. You want to laugh, almost, because he looks smug as anything. It’s a good view, you have to admit. You can see the letters _Manchester United._

“No.” He says, after a beat. He sits there so you go to him, because there’s nothing else to say, and when there’s nothing else to say you have to do something. You can’t keep still. You go to him, sink to your knees on the soft, heavy carpet, drop your head in his lap. This is what you know of infidelity.

-

Afterwards Gary falls asleep, a hand buried in your hair. It’s short, so you don’t mind. You lie very still, listening to the clock on the bedside table. You want to get up and turn it off- you can never sleep with something making that much noise, and plus, jet lag is a _bitch_ \- but you don’t. Instead you lie as still as you can, listening to his breathing wind in with the slow hand ticking the hours away.

_Manchester United is in my soul._ He said that, you remember. You wonder at how simple it is for him, black and white. Or rather, red. You wanted to go home, and so you have, but it’s as you suspected: it wasn’t home anymore.

-

The next morning he’s already dressing, looking under the bed for his other shoe. You’re grinning, even though the impending goodbye feels like a storm over your heads. But you’re used to it. Resigned. He’s sat at the foot of the bed, pulling on his shoe, and you love him. You remember this, from years and years ago- how he’d blow dry your boots with your own hairdryer because they never dried properly between training sessions, not when it rained every day and the pitch turned in to a swamp and you insisted on wearing the same goddamn pair of shoes because they were lucky. You’d have squelched your way through every training but he’d dry them for you, tiny line between his eyebrows from concentrating. He’d throw them at you after. _Pretty boy, get your fucking boots._   

‘Go on.’ You say, watching him. His hair is all mussed, and he’s frowning, eyebrows drawn together and the corners of his mouth turned down. He looks almost exactly like before, when you would tease him about that face he makes. _Keep making that face Gaz. You’ll get wrinkles._

‘What?’ He says.

‘Go on. You get to leave this time.’

He looks at you for a minute, not saying anything. Then he comes over, with a sigh, ready to do what’s sensible. He still has that tiny frown going, mouth pressed to a line like he’s steeling himself. When he’s finally standing in front of you, you get to do it, what you’ve been aching to do all last night. Smooth your palms over his shoulders. Tuck your thumbs under the lapel of his jacket, straighten them up. You press your forehead against his stomach. Soft.  

‘All those pasties, Gaz.’ you say, muffled. He laughs, hands coming around your face. He looks at you, very seriously, for a while, like he’s memorizing every wrinkle around your eyes, every line and every crease.

 He says, “Bye, Becks.” At the door. You make half a sound back at him, unable to bring yourself to say those words.

-

You leave the hotel soon after, before your check out’s due at noon. You stroll outside to the stadium, waiting for the taxi. Looking at it and you think- no, you feel-

The trophy’s cold and hard under your clenched fingers. Gary’s smiling with confetti streaming down, red and gold. His shoulders hunched up and his hands outspread like he was in the middle of a rainstorm. Your heart’s banging arrhythmically in your ribcage.The crowd so loud you'll hear them forever. _Glory, glory, glory._

So look, it is alright. Here is home, Manchester United, Old Trafford with all the lights on. It’s the only light in a dark city, in your memories. So home exists, and even if you can’t go back- you can’t come back - it is here. The stands above you casting your heart in steel - _the shadow_ \- and Gary’s unguarded laughter on his unlined face - _the soul_ \- You know where home is, and if that isn’t some consolation, then what is?

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
